“Nothing more recent?” I prod, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Jack shrugs. “The closest movie theater to where I live is a four-hour drive. I don’t get there very often.”
“But you have Netflix, right?” The resort has Wi-Fi, proving that there is internet in Alaska.
“I like documentaries more.” He doesn’t take his eyes off the horizon.
I wait. Hold my breath. Expect Jack to turn to me with a big smile and goSurprise!But it doesn’t come.
To Jack, I’m David.
Well, not really. David was a scared, closeted teen from a village in North Dakota where he was related by blood to half the residents and by marriage to the rest.
The David Jack thinks he knows is a bodyguard for an eccentric real estate mogul.
I’ve succeeded at tougher roles though. The bionic alien hybrid inThe Outerlands, for example. I was almost nominated for SAG Award for that one.
The point, though, is that Jack doesn’t know Damian the movie star. And that means he doesn’t know about Cannes. He hasn’t seen the endless loops of memes and videos in which I called Anderson a fear-mongering slobber donkey. He doesn’t know what my ass looks like and doesn’t think he’s owed any amount of my time or attention, but somehow that leaves me wanting to give it to him even more.
The boat slows.
“We’re here,” Jack says, all honest grins as he stands and gestures for me to climb down the ladder to the deck below.
“We’re where?” We’re surrounded by open water. The shore is visible in the distance, a green-brown line of trees with the endless gray and white peaks of mountains looming behind them, but it would be a hell of a swim to get there. Other than that, it’s all water.
Jack follows me down the ladder, and holy shit if the view toward shore is beautiful, the view of Jack’s denim-clad ass as he makes his easy way backward down the ladder is its own kind of picturesque.
They sure grow them nice in Alaska.
Oh, knock it off. It’s easy to get infatuated with someone like Jack. All I wanted to do was escape, and whether he knows it or not, Jack is offering me even more than I could have dreamed of. But he’s a guy trying to do a job, and I shouldn’t take advantage of that. Spending a few hours with him making small talk about fish and sunrises is enough.
Before I can embarrass myself further, the door to the cabin opens and Vin comes out, eyes narrowed.
“Why did we stop?” he asks, voice thick with his nasal Boston accent. The Greenpeace bit is one he dreamed up several years ago at Comic Con, right before the secondShadow Leaguefilm came out. I was trapped in an endless line of bloggers and critics who all wanted “just one minute” of my time, and it was only Vin hollering at the imaginary Horatio on his phone about rain forests and endangered baby seals who caused enough of a commotion that I was able to slip out a staff door and make my escape on a passing golf cart.
“Mr. Morgan, I think we’re going to fish.”
“Fish?” He spits it out between clenched teeth and tense lips like the word is offensive to him.
“Yes.” I have to bite down on my smile at the incensed look on Vin’s face. “Our guide thinks this is a good place to try.”
Vin strides across the deck until he’s standing chest to chest with Jack. Or actually, it’s more like forehead to chest, since Vin is several inches shorter than Jack, but that doesn’t stop him from glaring up at the bigger man.
“Now you listen to me,” he says, poking a finger toward Jack. “We came all this way to see the big Alaskan fish, yeah?”
Jack blinks a few times. “Okay.”
“Not like we haven’t seen fish before. You should have seen the size of the tuna I caught in front of the house at Martha’s Vineyard last year.”
My toes curl in my shoes as I try to hold in my laughter. He sounds like such an entitled prick.
“I’m sure it must have been very impressive.” Jack doesn’t sound impressed. He sounds pissed. Like he doesn’t care he’s staring down the ninth richest—or did I say he was the sixth?—man in Massachusetts.
“Oh, it was.” Vin holds his arms out to show the size of the mythical tuna, still glaring up at Jack. “So you’d better show us something as impressive.”
“That’s the plan.” Jack gives me a glance that once again makes me wonder if we’re even talking about fish anymore.
Vin at least seems content. “Good. Now you and David fish. I have to call Horatio back.”
